A scandal-plagued state agency gets a shake up at last

A Daly City firefighter stands atop an engine to survey the fire on Claremont Drive in San Bruno, where a suspected explosion in a gas line ignited the area.A Daly City firefighter stands atop an engine to survey the carnage of the gas pipeline explosion.

Photo: Brant Ward / The Chronicle 2010

Calling the state Public Utilities Commission scandal-plagued is almost an understatement. Yes, it failed to spot faulty gas lines while its leaders dickered in private with power companies over consumer rates. But the stodgy agency is also falling short in monitoring California’s fast-changing economy.

These pressures to mend past practices and anticipate the future lie behind changes that Sacramento is mapping out for the PUC. Pressure was building in the Legislature in an unstoppable wave that moved a reluctant Gov. Jerry Brown to agree to a makeover plan.

For the Bay Area, there is no bigger explanation than the San Bruno explosion in 2010 that killed eight and leveled a neighborhood. A shoddy pipeline neglected by Pacific Gas & Electric should have caught the agency’s notice. An inquiry led to another troubling problem: Utility executives had back-channel access to agency commissioners who set rates for millions of consumers. The PUC was anything but a watchdog regulator.

Similar stories were repeated up and down the state. In San Diego, controversy blew up when former PUC President Michael Peevey sought to make ratepayers shoulder part of the costs of shuttering a nuclear power plant. Earlier this year, underground gas storage chambers sprung leaks in Los Angeles, forcing evacuations of thousands of homes.

The brewing anger pushed lawmakers to propose doing away with the stumbling agency. That storm cloud finally led Brown, who had vetoed smaller reforms last year, to accede to a redesign.

Much of it deals with shedding light on decision making, hidden from public view for too long. There will be protections for whistle-blowers, required signups for lobbyists and published notices of communications between the five commissioners and favor-seekers. The back room deal making could largely evaporate if these ethics and transparency rules take root.

There’s also some sensible downsizing in the workload of an agency conceived in different times. Oversight of buses and limousines meant the PUC was nudged into handling ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft. As questions about safety and job rights welled up, the PUC was overwhelmed with challenging duties. The entire field will be handed to the state Transportation Agency.

Telecommunications, which used to mean phone rates, has mushroomed into a wider world of smartphones. The task of rate setting and other economic issues will be studied, with the work possibly shifted elsewhere in the future.

The proposed changes are a welcome start on overhauling an important agency that had lost its way.